


The Best Time to Reinvent Yourself

by Rajani_the_Freak



Series: what makes a hero? AU [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Don't worry he gets better, Everyone gets better, Guardian Marinette, Healing, Ivan does NOT give up, Kim is depressed, Lila bashing, Rose in unmotivated, Some salt, he a fighter, healing depression through challenges, it's not paranoia if they are out to get you, new identities galore, poor Sabrina, she also gets better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28069530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rajani_the_Freak/pseuds/Rajani_the_Freak
Summary: A continuation after 'Through Rose Tinted lenses'. Marinette's Safety Net™ comes into play.This is the version where Marinette successfully stays hidden from both Batman and the Justice League.(aka: Hidden Guardian Timeline)“When things are bad, it’s the best time to reinvent yourself.” —George Lopez
Relationships: (I'll add as I go), Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi (implied), Marinette/Self-respect, former Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant
Series: what makes a hero? AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034739
Comments: 66
Kudos: 333





	1. Netanella

**Author's Note:**

> I never intended for there to be multi-chapter fics in this series, but this was getting too long so... here. Enjoy!

Those last weeks after Adrien talked to her had been hectic. For a start, her parents were acting odd. Where once she’d been faced with the disappointed glances from when they believed Lila’s lies about her, they began to show sad regretful ones that she couldn’t explain. Most of the time it seemed like they wanted to talk to her, but couldn’t bring themselves to do so.

On another time she might have investigated a bit. Even if her parents were now in a constant state of disappointment over her ‘going out and disappearing for some time a lot of times and probably smoking pot or hanging out with older guys’, they were never awful parents. In fact, it had taken some lies on the extreme side from Lila to get them mad. Considering the free spirit that was her grandmother Gina, they weren’t phased by much. 

Skipping class and being truant? No biggy. Motorcycles? She knew from grandma how to not crash one.

But doing drugs and being implied to be having sex with much older guys? Those were a very hard 'no' from both of them.

Marinette could see why they reached that conclusion, especially since she couldn’t explain what she’d been doing when she had to be Ladybug. While she never smelled of drugs, Lila had managed to sneak a baggy into her backpack just to set up the scene. And the photo from behind that she’d taken from her and uncle Jagged inside the Grand Hotel, before he’d donned the hair gel he usually wore in public and making him unrecognizable, definitely didn’t help her case. 

Even then, unlike her classmates, they had needed to be worn down by Lila to fit her ‘narrative’ because they'd wanted to trust their daughter. So she understood that they were justified in their concern and, when she kept escaping the room to fight akumas while she was supposed to be there as punishment, highly disappointed and angry with her. 

But it hurt.

She still cared for them, even if she felt too hurt by everything to stay, even if her identity hadn’t been compromised. So yeah, any other time she would have investigated. But she needed to finish the last touches to make her get away so she never looked into it.

That was why she was surprised when, after returning from the end of school party and getting her things ready to leave, she saw her parent’s climbing up into her room. They looked at her with sad, sad eyes. Her father looked like a broken man and couldn’t say anything, so it was up to her mother.

“Just… come back for Christmas at least.” She said pleadingly and Marinette realized that, somehow, they must have found out she was leaving. She hadn’t told them. She’d been planning on leaving a letter behind explaining the bare minimum, aside from the whole Ladybug thing.

But she hadn’t been expecting them to just… let her leave!

“You’re not going to try to stop me?” She asked, just in case.

“We… overheard the conversation you had with Adrien.” Her mother told her as way of explanation.

“It’s just… no one had visited you in a long while and it was that boy you used to like and we just thought that perhaps we were getting our girl back so we wanted to see if we were right.” Her father blurted out, starting to cry half way through like the big emotional giant she’d always known him to be.

She blanched upon realizing exactly what she’d said to Adrien that day.

“We… understand now. Everything.” Her mother continued. “And we know we have no right to ask for forgiveness. We should have trusted you more.”

Well, Marinette couldn’t let that stand.

“It wasn’t your fault. If you want to place the blame in someone, place it on Lila. She’s the one who planted the drugs and lied about everything. You did the best you could from what you knew. I just couldn’t tell you why I needed to leave.” She stated as calmly as she could, considering yet another two people knew her identity. “I’m just… I’m hurt. No amount of logic can make me un-hurt, no matter how true. I need time away. But…” She looked at then earnestly, begging them to believe her. “I’ll do my best to come home again. I have close to half a year to come to terms with everything until Christmas. I’ll see then if I am ready, but I’ll tell you something if I’m not.” She then hesitated on the last part. “I’ll… I’ll keep your number too. I’ll call you when I’m settled. If you overheard me talking to Adrien, then you know why all the secrecy, right?”

“We know.” Her mother reassured her.

They looked at each other silently one last time before rushing into a hug, the last one they’d have as a family in a long while. Marinette felt the tears forming and was feeling like a mess on the inside.  
Part of her really wanted to stay, now that they knew the truth and were reaching out for her. But she’d been forced to make plenty of tough decisions the last few years and knew better than to let emotion decide in this case.

For as much as she wanted to stay, not only did she have to deal with her exposed identity, but she also knew that if she stayed, it wouldn’t be healthy for her. There was too much hurt for them to work through and staying meant she would end up lashing out at her parents because she was resentful and they would take it because they felt guilty and that was something neither of them needed.

She’d made her peace with the possibility of them remaining disappointed in her and having to win them back once she dealt with her own pain in a healthy manner. This was just a little bit better than how she’d originally imagined things going.

Marinette left Paris that night, right after the graduation party and with a tearful goodbye from her parents. Her country of choice for her to settle in was, ironically enough, Italy.

She chose Italy because, despite Lila being from there, her own Grandmother was from there too. And while she didn’t stay in one place for long, it didn’t change the fact that she had a rich knowledge on her home country’s culture and had taught a lot to Marinette, including the language.

Her grandma’s Italian came to Marinette much easier than her mother’s Mandarin, mostly because French and Italian were both derived from Latin. Marinette had been slowly learning Mandarin, but it was an uphill fight. She was also learning Japanese from Kagami, and that was far easier since they talked to each other more often for a while before she got really busy. It was something she didn’t get a chance to do with her Mother for Mandarin because she was busy most of the time and Adrien because before she couldn’t string two coherent words together at first, and later because they weren’t friends anymore.

There was also English, but while there a lot more countries speaking it, it was also a risky move to make. At least with Italian or Japanese she had no electronic trails leading to her learning both languages, not even small comments on the internet.

Ever since the conversation with Bruce Wayne she’d been slowly setting up another identity in Italy so as not to alarm anyone. Choosing a name was the hardest part. Her first name still needed to be close enough to her real one that she could easily adapt to it, or at the very least had the same nickname for it so she could go by that.

Usually people shortened her name to Mari, but some shortened it to Nettie. Since Mari was too on the nose for her taste, she would look for a name that could be shortened to Nettie.

This had led to her choosing Netanella for first name. It was odd enough that she could convince others to use the shortened version instead. 

For her last name she went for symbolic rather than practical. She couldn’t choose anything Ladybug related because it would be obvious. She’d considered spiders, since they were the Ladybug’s predators. But birds were also known predators to the ladybug. She hadn’t searched what kind of birds, but considering most of the batfam was named after birds, when they weren’t named with bat somewhere in the name, she was reticent to use a known predator to ladybugs. Besides, this was to protect the ladybug, not hunt her. So, the choice was going for known bat and robin predators.

And wouldn’t you know it, they had a lot of predators in common, like hawks, owls, racoons and snakes. She ended up choosing Civetta, the Italian word for owl.

And she still wanted to honor Master Fu somehow and, since she was half Chinese, she added his last name to hers. She pondered on using Marianne’s, but Lenoir was too French for what she wanted.

Thus, Netanella Civetta Fu was born. She characterized her as an introvert that didn’t talk much and had no friends to explain the lack of photos, but that still had good grades.

She went a step further by searching Lila’s previous schools in Italy. There was a reason for that. Marinette wanted to establish Netanella as her own personal assistant and PR manager. She went as far as leaving half hidden trails that indicated, to anyone searching for it like a certain bat, that she’d been trying to contact former victims of Lila. She used the Horse and Fox to teleport to Italy and make it so that brief sightings of Netanella could be seen on the cameras and to leave an electronic trail proving her existence. She also didn’t forge an exchange in e-mails until much later, when she’d been properly established as a real person.

For all intents and purposes, Netanella was classmates with Lila while she’d been in primary school and gotten such a big crisis of social anxiety over it that all records stated she’d refused to leave home for most of her life after that. She added things that would indicate she had absent parents that decided to home-school her rather than help her get through her trauma and Netanella only started getting through it after contacting some psychologists through the internet ain video conference. She’d taken some courses and become qualified as a PR manager. She’d graduated early but, because of the lack of connections, she didn’t get any job offers. That is… until the owner of Dandelion’s Coccinelle contacted her.

While she’d been carefully setting that identity up, Marinette also set a slightly sloppier one meant to distract the Bat. That one, she did name after a spider. And after a red herring for that matter.  
Aranea Hóng Fēiyú was half Chinese, half British and a baker. There wasn’t much to her other than suddenly appearing out of the blue. It was the sort of sloppy work someone might expect a teen to come up with and it was perfect.

While she’d been researching for all of this, Marinette found something that chilled her to the bone. She’s found Lila’s track record. It was subtle enough, not surprising considering how Lila was capable of turning everyone against the victim, but there were just too many coincidences to dismiss. 

All records showed Lila showing up at a school and, not long after, one of the smartest students up until then started having accusations of all sorts of things, like cheating on tests. The fact that the victim’s grades started lowering due to the toxic environment only came to support Lila’s lies.

Most of them ended up taking their own lives, even after she was long gone, because of the trauma and bad reputation.

Marinette saved all the files regarding that just in case. Wayne seemed to think that she’d be unable of entering university because she faked most of her knowledge, but Marinette wasn’t so naïve. She’d heard of some students offering to write essays in exchange for money. Lila was sure to know about them too. And European universities worked far differently than American ones. There were no entrance exams. They would use their school grade’s average for that. Then it was sink or swim for them to get by. And while essays could be faked, the finals couldn’t. Marinette still figured that Lila’s future grades could be tweaked somehow, even with the finals.

So no, Marinette wasn’t taking any chances in this. Any dirt on Lila could prove itself essential to taking her down if needed.

It was just a couple of days before Adrien visited her that she finally roleplayed her initial contact with her other identity. Initially she’d wanted to keep her new identity separate from her true one but eventually decided it was a bit too simplistic. Perhaps the sort of simplistic that anyone would expect of her. Now, keeping close enough to her company in this way was unexpected. She would still periodical appearances as Aranea in several places just to distract potential trackers, but she would remain as Netanella most of the time. Of course, any time she left her new Italian house, she would be wearing a Trixx made disguise on her face. It would be hard work on their part, with Trixx not being in a transformation and Marinette having to avoid anyone touching her face hard enough to break the ‘glamour’ on it, but they would do it.

The roleplay was actually a bit fun. She’d already purchased a small apartment in Italy with her commission money that she’d discreetly managed to launder into Netanella’s account without raising red flags for anyone. Thank god she’d had to learn how to hack.

The roleplay started with Marinette in France writing an e-mail to Netanella who all for all intents and purposes, she’d only recently researched about. In the e-mail she’d expressed her interest in her story, while identifying herself as another victim of Lila.

The next e-mail was sent from an Italian IP address due to a clever used of Kaalki’s miraculous, where ‘Netanelle’ hesitatingly poked around for more information before deciding on whether to trust her or not.

Then Marinette went into detail on what had been done to her and ‘Netanelle’ finally told her story back. Netanelle’s back story was different from the truth, but just as plausible, considering the things Marinette had read. Netanella hadn’t tried to expose Lila. She’d actually believed her at first but ended up realizing that Lila was trying to lead her down a dark path and while she hadn’t called her out and merely stopped hanging out with her, Lila took it personally. Her usual MO followed.

Marinette offers a job. She needs someone to help manage her business’ public face because for several reasons, including a potential stalker, Marinette needs to remain hidden and never in one place. After some back and forth, they agree on the job and the salary.

This ‘salary’ solved a lot of immediate problems. While she couldn’t transfer all the money she got on commissions to the other account, she could still transfer quite a bit. What she couldn’t transfer she would use to fund her fake leads, get fabric from all over the world and help sustain her final quest.

Then it was a matter of ironing out the details, book a flight to London she would only use as a cover and wait while keeping everything under scrutiny. 

D-day arrived. Marinette saw her prediction on Lila’s actions come true and saved her former cat. She got an emotional goodbye, teleported from her house to a deserted alley where she donned her Aranea wig, made her way to the airport, got on her flights, landed in London, before going to a restroom and teleporting to Italy while no one was watching.

And this is where she stays for a long while. She becomes more proficient with Japanese as she gets to talk more often with Kagami, now that she isn’t completely slammed with her responsibilities as well as dealing with Lila’s plans. She also takes to finally learning Mandarin as well as the language in the Grimoire. Once she’s proficient in all of them, she takes to start learning some more languages, all the while she continues her commissions.

Four months in and she decided to make her second appearance as Aranea. One thing she’d decided to do was go to the former guardian temple to see what was left of it now that it had been restored and see what needed to be done. She also did something she should have done sooner. She contacted Jessica Keyne’s who was still the current holder of the Eagle miraculous. She should have done so sooner, all things considered, but she wasn’t sure if her communications were being watched. And besides, Jess had enough people around to protect her should it be necessary.

That was how she learned of a guardian that had approached her after she’d left New York.

She’d thought that perhaps the former guardians would remain just as they had been when they’d disappeared. It was what her use of the miraculous cure used to do. She hadn’t, however, taken into account that restoring things after so much time had passed could have adverse effects.

According to the guardian of the Native American box, while they’d been restored as they’d been at the time, it didn’t take long for the time displacement to start affecting everyone adversely. Slowly, they began to grown weaker. Not in a normal aging sort of weaker. More like accelerated aging. They hadn’t noticed at first and instead set about to restoring the temple and collecting whatever miraculous that had been lost during their absence. They’d refrained from going to Paris because it was clear that someone was already on the job and instead focused on the other boxes.

It wasn’t until years later that they realized they were aging double to what they should have been. The only ones spared from such were the respective Guardians of each box that, much like Master Fu, had their aging slowed down to give them a chance to find someone to take over. Apprentices couldn’t learn fast enough to take on the job for their Masters, and the Masters couldn’t give away their respective box without making sure the Apprentices knew all that they needed for fear of knowledge being lost. They tried finding kids who held promise to become the new apprentices and the former ones, that despaired at having their life cut short over someone else’s mistake, were allowed to enjoy the time they had left instead of continuing their lessons.

There was just one problem. The Order wasn’t regarded in any sort of esteem, unlike before, and parents were very reluctant, and sometimes down right hostile, when proposed that idea to. They’d tried to find her when she’d finished with Hawkmoth and Mayura, but it had taken them time to gather enough resources to send someone to Paris and she’d hidden well enough that they’d missed each other.

With that information, Marinette was even more determined to go to the Temple.

The following two months before Christmas were split between Tibet and Italy as she tried to learn everything she could in order to become a proper Guardian. It was hard work, but since she had nothing else to do aside from commissions, and she’d learned to be highly effective in everything she did due to her time as Ladybug, commissioned designer and class president at the same time, it proved little challenge to her, though she’d had to put her learning of other languages on hold to focus on the far more important Guardian language. It was a bit disappointing, but it was necessary. And she’d long gotten used to the feeling of disappointment, anyway.

She would occasionally be called to take the measurements of new clients and she would show up as Marinette to those since they were rare and far in between. Not to mention that she wanted the brand to still be associated with her in any way she could.

Eventually Christmas came and Marinette returned home for a few days, still on high alert and with plenty of contingency plans on hand should anything happen. Her parents had invited her grandparents and a few family members from her mother’s side. They were surprised and pleased she could now speak Mandarin fluently. 

Luka and Kagami visited at some point before going to join their own families’ celebrations. Adrien sent his regards through Kagami since he wasn’t sure he was welcomed. Marinette was thankful for that. She wasn’t ready to see him any time soon. She would eventually. She didn’t want their partnership to end on such a bitter note at the very least. Not for his sake, but for her own. She wanted to get rid of all the bitterness inside eventually.

Jagged and Penny ended up joining her family for the holidays as well.

Things were still a bit stiff between Marinette’s parents and herself but the constantly present hurt she’d felt before had begun to give away in their absence from her daily life save from some occasional phone calls. She still felt some hurt. It would take longer for her to be able to let go, but it was slowly getting there.

She ended up staying until New Years with regular visits to the Temple sprinkled in between.

She left home once again on January 1st feeling refreshed and hopeful in a way she hadn’t felt in a while. Things were getting better at last.


	2. Code - Group Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First Call

Despite Marinette’s certainty that she would probably be the first one to feel the consequences, she knew Alya would not be the first person to need her. Alya still had a few years in university to go through before she set out on her own. It was the same with Nino and many others, but Marinette knew Alya would be too stubborn to admit she needed help or that she was wrong about anything for a long while. If she were a betting woman, she would have guessed that she’d be last. And that was not counting with Chloé. 

But of all the people she knew, she hadn’t expected for Sabrina to be the first one.

Things had started normal enough for a day in Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s life. She started working on her commissions while the Chinese kwamis floated about, happy to be allowed out of the box.

She’d learned a lot of things with the previous guardians. Most of them about the responsibility of guarding and distributing the miraculous, as well as the language. But one thing that really clashed with her ideals was how they treated the miraculous like tools for the most part. Sure, the kwamis were still revered, but most of the time they were locked away into their boxes. She would not stand for that, though, so she made sure her house was safe enough to let them fly freely as they pleased, her kitchen stocked with each of their favorite meals.

She’d finished learning all the teachings of the Chinese Grimoire, including how to choose who to give the miraculous to. It was a bit mortifying where she’d gone wrong before. It was true she’d mostly hit jackpot in terms of compatibility, that alone did not a good hero make. She should have taken into account their moral codes and smarts as well rather than how much she trusted them as her civilian self. No wonder they didn’t work out, considering all turned their backs on her.

Now she knew better. While trust was still important, there were far more important things to take into account since no one could always 100% trust their instincts to trust someone over another person.

She been given the Burmese Grimoire after that one for some reason she couldn’t bother to decipher. While the Chinese Grimoire had some information about other miraculous, it was more focused on the Chinese box. The same could be said about the Burmese one, with one change of the culture it focused on. Some of the miraculous of that box had been broken, releasing the kwamis, but also making them undetectable and unable to interact with humans. Marinette wasn’t sure whether to commiserate with the others about it or be happy for them that they weren’t stuck in a jewel anymore so she opted for neutrality on the subject.

So, even after she was done with the commissions, she would still have plenty to do.

It was at that moment that she got a call from Kagami. She quickly transformed and opened the phone call option to answer it.

“Hello, Gami-chan? Did something happen?” She asked, knowing full well that she wouldn’t have called so soon after her last one unless something did happen.

“Code Group Project.” She stated. That had been the code she’d attributed to Sabrina, named after that time she’d almost gotten here to drop her toxic relationship with Chloé. “Adrien is requesting a meet up.”

Marinette checked her schedule for the day and told her when she’d be available and where she would meet him. She hadn’t expected for Adrien to actually want to meet her face to face and part of her was reluctant to do so, but she was trying to get over her resentful feelings. The full year spent away from anyone from her school had helped immensely. 

Things were still a tiny bit awkward with her parents but they were almost back to trusting each other. Perhaps not in the same way as before. It was impossible to go through a hell of a rough patch and come out on the other side the same person, but they were getting to know the people they’d become after that and loving each other despite the differences from before.

But Marinette wasn’t under no delusions. She knew it would be different with Adrien. She hadn’t spoken to him since that last conversation. This would be the first time.

She got there early and sat down. It was the former Agreste mansion that was still for sale since no one had afforded to buy it yet. Well… no one but the Waynes, according to Kagami. And it seemed that Adrien had taken her information to heart if he decided he didn’t want to sell to them. 

This was the former office where Gabriel waited out for his chance to go down the elevator hidden there to his so-called evil lair. She wasn’t sure why Adrien picked that spot for their meet up. Perhaps he wanted to turn the tragedy of this place into something positive with his next actions?

Adrien arrived just on time. After all this time freed from his controlling father’s clutches, he was still annal about timekeeping. 

“Hello Agreste.” She greeted in her Busyness Woman Voice™ and he flinched at it.

“Hello Marinette.” He said back. “How are things going? I’ve seen more and more of your designs among the celebrities.”

She pondered whether or not she should give into the temptation of being friendly back to him. Despite everything, her friendliness was still a very big part of her and she wasn’t angry or resigned enough to keep the same tone of their last conversation.

“Things have been well.” She admitted reluctantly. “I’ve been learning from the other Guardians about my new duty. I can’t tell you much about it though. Designing has been great and so far no birds or bats have come knocking at my door so I’m taking it as a positive for now. And you?”

“I…” Adrien became a bit bashful and uncertain. “I’m studying psychology. After everything that happened and all the things I did wrong, I thought it might help me from fucking up again. Instead it has been a long lesson on how fucked up I am because of my father and how much caffeinated drinks I need to keep me awake for several nights in a row.”

“Oh.” She said, unsure of what to tell him after that.

“But it’s ok. I think… I actually rather like it. I’d never thought I would. I never really had a choice before. Or, at least, I was conditioned to believe I didn’t have one. It was always my father’s way or the highway.”

“Well, for one I’m happy for you. Congratulations of finding something you like.” She said awkwardly.

“Thank you.” He said happily before sobering up a bit. “Onto the reason why I’m here. Sabrina is a mess. And I would have missed it if Chloé didn’t still have a longing to get her friend back, thought she still refuses to admit it.”

Marinette already suspected that. It really wasn’t any news what happened between the former friends. Like Marinette had tried to do, before the whole Evillustrator thing happened, Lila had also said that Sabrina deserved better friends than Chloé. But unlike Marinette, Lila wasn’t doing it out of concern for the girl, wanting only another fly on her web, and seeing the advantage someone so used to obeying and doing things for a ‘queen bee’ would bring. And Unlike Marinette, she didn’t have an akuma interrupt the small ‘progress’ she’d done.

Soon, Sabrina had taken to following Lila around. On the surface it certainly looked like an improvement. Lila seemed to appreciate having her around. But Marinette knew better so she could easily see all the compliments she gave the ginger girl were laced with subtle insults aimed at whatever self-confidence she had left.

Soon, while it looked on the outside that Sabrina’s slowly forming clinginess was the result of her finally getting a good friend and wanting to hold onto her, Marinette could easily spot how Sabrina was becoming more and more dependent on Lila. Suddenly, all of her sense of self-worth was solely focused on the Italian girl. If she even so much as slightly failed Lila in anything, no matter how small, she immediately seemed to think she’d failed utterly as a person.

The others dismissed it all as after effects of having been Chloé’s friend. Even Chloé seemed to start thinking that at some point, considering how remorseful she looked sometimes, so long as no one was looking at her. 

Marinette knew better. Even at her worst, Chloé never had Sabrina act that way. No, this was Lila’s fault. Lila had created the ultimate servant.

It was a good thing that, for as guilty as she seemed to feel for, supposedly, ‘being the reason why Sabrina feared failure’, Chloé was a selfish and possessive person by nature. Sabrina was already such a quiet existence, even before Lila got to her, that her akumatization was her being invisible. Were it not for Chloé and her want of getting her friend back, Adrien might have never found out about her.  
Especially considering what Marinette had found out about the girl after getting the brief explanation out of him. 

Whereas Adrien had told her only that Sabrina had become a maid with no self esteem that wouldn’t defend herself from any sort of harassment, the full story was even more concerning.

Lila had completely nullified all the good points about Sabrina in the girl’s own mind. Sabrina had always had good grades and was a good student. Very diligent with her tasks. She could have gone to a university and gotten a far better job easily. But Lila made her think that she wasn’t good enough. That her smarts were just her memorizing the books and not true knowledge and it would amount to nothing in the end.

Then came the cherry on the cake. She found out what Lila had told Sabrina the last time they saw each other.

Marinette knew Lila was an awful human being, but to go to the point of looking at someone who thinks she’s hung the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky and tell them that they are worthless and that she can’t be friends with them any longer since they are so useless and she’s going to university with better people and that they should become a maid because that was all they were good for? Not even Marinette had suspected she was that evil.

Marinette had suspected there might be some psychological damage to Sabrina even before this, but this was so much more than what’s she’d thought.

Sabrina’s case had been one she’d had the most difficulty preparing for. Most of the other former classmates’ issues were more practical in nature, like being able to work in the area they wanted to because of the lies. But Sabrina was never about what jobs she might get. She was all about who appreciated her more.

Lila had taken advantage of it and, the moment she no longer needed her, she discarded her like one would a flavorless bubblegum.

But she had, never the less, prepared for it. Marinette, while doing her pretend research, had compiled a list of all of Lila’s former victims and managed, after a whole month of working on them, to get them to band together and form a group where they could talk about it.

They were actually really nice for the most part. Some had come out of it feeling jaded, and not everyone had survived until Marinette had contacted them, but the group was helping all of them deal with the after effects, herself included.

She was sure they would be more than willing to help another victim that was still suffering from Lila’s influence. Especially one like Sabrina.

So, once again back in her home in Italy, Marinette contacted the group about it, receiving positive replies. Soon, she was inviting Sabrina to join the group chat.

It took time. A LOT of time. Sabrina was still mostly convinced she wasn’t good at anything, but they managed to convince her to seek therapy. And that was the best decision that they got her to take. Slowly but surely, she was getting better. Soon, she’d decided to attend university the next Fall.

She was two years behind most of her peers because of the delay, going on three, but she was so efficient that half of her classes were replaced with doing the exams early, since the university she’d applied to had the option to pay to take the exams without the classes. It was on the expensive side, and Sabrina did have to take double the number of exams at the end of each semester in an effort to catch up, but she did it.

During that time, Marinette made sure that Adrien helped her keep Chloé away from the ginger-haired girl. Sure, Chloé had been remorseful about it, and she had changed with the years, but she hadn’t changed _that_ much. She was still mostly a socialite that thought herself better than those around her. She was softer around the edges, sure, but Sabrina wouldn’t be able to be her friend without ending up falling into the old patterns. Their relationship had been toxic, even if well-intentioned. So no, Sabrina couldn’t meet Chloé. Not yet at least. She needed time and a chance to grow into herself a bit more.

Sabrina’s was the case Marinette had followed closer out of all of her former classmates during the reinventing stage precisely because of the psychological component. While Marinette never went out of her way to spend time with her, mostly because she didn’t want her to latch onto her like she’d done that one time in the past, they now shared a social circle, so it was inevitable that they talked.

It helped that Sabrina was the classmate she was least resentful towards to. Sabrina had never really been given choices if one were to look closely. She’d gone back to Chloé that time because she thought Marinette was abandoning her and that was her defense mechanism, her security blanket. Chloé dictated what she should do and like, and Lila went ever further beyond that.

Sabrina just went with the flow because she was lonely and, after experiencing that same loneliness to an extent, Marinette could understand why. She’d barely hung on and it was only because she had the kwamis on her side. She didn’t even want to contemplate what would have happened if she hadn’t had that last thread of companionship.

So no, she couldn’t blame Sabrina for following along with what would let her have friends, even if they were fake ones.

It took years. She’d helped other former classmates of her in the meantime but hadn’t considered Sabrina’s case done until she’d learned from someone else in the group that Sabrina’s therapist had given her free reign to meet former friends.

Sabrina had become the personal assistant of a young CEO who looked at her hard work, intelligence and organizational mind and deemed her the right person for the job. She and Chloé were friends again, this time in a healthy manner. She was a confident young woman who’d gotten pay raises as the company she worked at improved due to her diligence. She was at the top of her world and Marinette was happy for her.

She’d come to thank her not long after. She’d heard that Marinette had been the one behind the group chat and her invitation. She apologized for all that had happened on her part too. By that point, Sabrina hadn’t been the first one to thank her and apologize. Not even by a mile. But it was one of the ‘thank you’s that Marinette had been joyful to receive.


	3. Code - Heartbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second call

A couple of months after Adrien had reached out for her because of Sabrina was when he called her again, this time through Luka because Kagami was out on another fencing tournament.

At this moment in time, Sabrina had been successfully integrated into the group chat and they were all working on building her back up. Marinette was almost done learning the Burmese Grimoire, though she was getting more and more apprehensive over the other guardian’s actions as of late. Not in a _‘I think then mean me harm’_ kind of way. More in a _‘are they really ok? I’m concerned’_ kind of way. 

No one in the group chat knew about her actually being her Italian identity, Netanella, but her new identity had started making waves with her name being associated with Dandelion’s Coccinelle. Sure, the name Marinette Dupain Cheng was still what was most important about her brand, but Netanella was still known for keeping a good handle on the PR side of the thing. Marinette even started getting job offers for other companies through Netanella.

So far, every single one of them wanted her on site, so she had a good excuse to decline. She said she didn’t like leaving her home for long and would rather avoid triggering her social anxiety. She claimed her work at Dandelion’s Coccinelle allowed her to do things at her own pace.

So far no one had tried to appeal to her persona’s needs, merely raising her potential salary, but she knew it was a matter of time. For now, they only thought she was playing hard to get in order to get a better pay, but eventually they would try to appeal to ‘her demands’.

She had started designing things for the Fall collection and was done editing the photos for her Summer one. She’d been lucky enough to find some people willing to model her things. One of them, a blonde named Allegra, came from the group chat.

Marinette hadn’t expected to be contacted so soon after Sabrina. She’d figured that most of her classmates would only start having problems after university. Clearly, she was wrong.

She met once again with Adrien. This time, they met at the top floor of the Eiffel tower. She didn’t know how Adrien had managed to get it devoid of other people so that they could meet. Marinette didn’t worry too much that anyone could see her, though. She was due to make another appearance as herself again anyway.

Things weren’t as awkward between them as they had been last time, but it was still too soon. It had only been two months, after all. She learned that Adrien was doing his best to get Chloé out of her toxic mindset, with very little success. Marinette wasn’t surprised at either of those facts. 

She knew that she and Adrien would eventually need to talk their relationship out once more. Last time she’d told him a lot about her grievances. She felt entitled to it. And she still did. But for better or for worse, Adrien was a part of Kagami’s life and the least she owed her was to try and get along with him. She… didn’t count the talk about Sabrina. That was more of a debriefing than an actual conversation.

This time he extended his small talk a bit more.

Classes were going well for Adrien. He did end up selling the former Agreste mansion to the Waynes after all, but not without combing it top to bottom for anything miraculous that might have been left behind. 

...That was new. 

She’d seen that the mansion was being remodeled through the internet, but it didn’t say who bought it. She’d hoped it hadn’t been them, but really, it made sense that they would take advantage of whatever the mansion might have, especially considering how secure it was. It had only been a matter of time before Adrien gave in. He really didn’t want the mansion anymore.

It was probably a base for the justice league now, considering they weren’t publicizing who bought it.

Adrien asked about her and she answered, though still a bit reticent on telling too much.

Then came the topic that had brought them there. Kim.

Unlike Sabrina, who Lila had gotten rid off right as soon as she’d gotten confirmation of her university, it seemed that Lila had wanted to keep Kim, and Marinette could see why. He was an athlete. A very good one at that. He was going places. He could become a celebrity and Lila wanted a slice of that.

But then she made the mistake of giving him bad advice on training techniques that supposedly came from a athlete friend of hers. He followed it and ended up injured from overuse. Instead of resting it, because Lila told him that it was just s sign of his muscles getting stronger, he kept working it. Adrien wasn’t big on the details but apparently there was an incident because of the overuse injury that caused an even bigger injury that had high chances of keeping him from ever being able to preform at an Olympic level. 

He’d gone through physical therapy for a while at the same time as he took a course on proper training techniques and learned that he’d been doing it all wrong. He was still convinced that it had been a innocent mistake on Lila’s part. Perhaps she hadn’t understood what her friend had said and said it wrong or something. 

After a while, seeing how slow his recovery was being, he’d started to lose hope that he’d even become an Olympic athlete. It only got exacerbated when Lila let slip that she couldn’t waste time on people who weren’t going anywhere in life. While that hadn’t been the exact wording, and she’d been far more subtle about it, it didn’t change that Kim was completely wrecked about it. Especially when he already felt so depressed about his injury. Now he was resigned to becoming just another person teaching others to reach the gold because they couldn’t themselves.

At least this part was easier to deal with. Depression or no depression, there one thing Kim had regardless of mood. He never backed down from a challenge or bet. It remoted back to their childhood. She couldn’t quite remember the details because it was so long ago and she’d been really young. All she knew was that, from then on, he’d never say no to a challenge, no matter how sad or angry he was. It had just become an ingrained part of him now.

It took her a few days to track him down. She hadn’t been in Paris for more than a couple of days since she’d left. By this time it had been almost a whole year since the the graduation party.

It was odd to see Kim, sporty and energetic Kim, walking with the help of a cane. At least he still had Ondine at his side.

“I didn’t think a cane was a part of your aesthetic.” She commented from behind him, making him turn around in surprise. Ondine was surprised too and seemed split between throttling her for that remark and remind herself that Marinette probably didn’t know what happened. She was wrong, of course, but Marinette wasn’t about to elucidate her to that fact.

“Oh! It’s you.” He said. There was still a hint of hostility in his voice, but still a vastly improvement over the last time they’d talked when he was still a firm believer of Lila’s words. Right now, though, he was trying to still believe the Italian girl, but she had abandoned him now that he wasn’t useful and that made it harder for him to believe that Marinette had bullied her. “I got into a training accident.” He said by way of explanation.

“How big of an accident?” She asked, finally letting her concern through.

“Big.”

A pause.

“Well, I bet you can’t get out of using that cane in a month!” She stated at last, leading to Ondine glaring at her while Kim gaped.

“What!?” He asked, only a tiny bit indignantly.

Well, that wouldn’t do!

“What do you say? I win and I get to make you a more fashionable cane than that ugly monstrosity you are using. You win and… You get a free commission for your girlfriend from my fashion design business.” She pressed.

That stopped Ondine’s glare as she now looked confused. Kim, on the other hand, still wasn’t indignant enough.

“Why would I even take that bet from you?” He asked, inflating his chest.

She could tell that he believed he couldn’t win the bet and that was why he was reticent to accept it.

“What? Can’t keep your money where your mouth is? After all of the time you spent bragging over the great athlete you would become?” The indignation intensified, but still not high enough in level so she pressed even more. “I didn’t take Lê Chiến Kim for a quitter.”

The former athlete snapped, his pride unable to take such accusations. 

“I’ll take that bet! Don’t come crying to me when you lose!” He shouted at her.

“Sure thing. Feel free to contact my PR when I win. She’ll be able to reach me. Here’s a card with her number.” She said before turning her back and striding away.

Kim didn’t win the bet and, when the month was done, he could be seen using a highly detailed cane that looked aerodynamic enough that it fit in with his usual sporty wardrobe. But he had improved. So, Marinette showed up again for another challenge. If she used those to promote her products whenever he lost, at least she was being upfront about it. She knew that if she asked something he wasn’t willing to do, he’d just be able to bargain for a different prize.

It took almost another full year for him to finally win and be free of his fashionable cane. Not long after, Ondyne used a new sports’ bathing suit on her following competition. It was lightly based in Aqua Ladybug’s scale design, but with colors that better complimented Ondyne’s skin and hair tone.

They weren’t friends. Aside from her randomly challenging him, they didn’t talk. Marinette didn’t really feel the need to. Whereas she could feel some sympathy with Sabrina, the same couldn’t be said for Kim. He should have known better. Especially when it was sports’ training or injuries that Lila had been lying about. That had supposed to been his niche. It also rankled that, after knowing each other from so young, he was so quick to believe the new girl over someone he should have known better.

But the past was the past, and she had to get used to this. Not even the holders of the rabbit miraculous dared changing it over petty things like the loss of a friendship.

Marinette then gave him a longer challenge, now that he had recovered. While he no longer used a cane, she was under no delusions that he was ok and just in a need of training to make a come back in sports. He still needed physical therapy, after all. So, she gave him two years to win his next competition. He accepted.

She hadn’t expected him to be so determined. He won in a year and a half. Marinette designed his and Ondyne’s wedding garments.

Their interactions dwindled after that. Kim no longer needed her to push him to do better. He still commissioned her, this time paying the right price instead of having it for free. She sometimes checked the news on how he was doing before going back to what she’d been doing before. It wasn’t until later, when he’d managed to win bronze on the Olympic triathlon, that he contacted her for something other than commissions.

He thanked her over the phone. He apologized for her last school years. Whereas before he’d been convinced she was helping him to make up for her ‘bullying’ years, he’d recently come to the conclusion that Lila wasn’t as innocent as she’d claimed and he’d been willing to believe, having met the person that the advice supposedly came from and realizing that he knew no Lila.

He was truly remorseful over it all, once he realized that it wasn’t him that needed to forgive Marinette (though he had, for all intents and purposes, having gone out of his way to commission her), but the other way around.

Marinette wasn’t big on forgiveness after everything she’d been through. She was more a live and let live sort of person that would never forget how quickly they’d turned on her. But she appreciated his apology. Their non-existent relationship had warmed up after that. Still not enough to actually be friends again, but it was a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an aside note, Marinette is naming each classmate's codes as when she felt she failed them most in her civilian self.
> 
> In the previous chapter, Marinette felt she failed Sabrina in a way because she didn't help her out of the mindscape that allowed Lila to do what she did.
> 
> Here she is recalling how her encouraging Kim to confess to Chloé was an AWFUL idea that ended up with him humiliated. Sure, he got ondine later, who was a far better girl, but at the time he likes Chloé for whatever reason. Though it wasn't Marinette's fault, when she started naming the codes, she still had a bit of the mentality Bustier had imposed on her and after that, it just remained this way.


	4. Code - Princess Twinkle Peach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third Call

Adrien hadn’t called about Rose until two full years after their graduation party. Both of them had been too busy to really notice anyone before then, Adrien with his Finals and Marinette with helping both Sabrina and Kim, her commissions and becoming a Guardianx2.

She’d finally learned why the Guardians had her learning the Burmese Grimoire. The guardian assigned to it, Sayadaw Khin, handed his Miraculous Box to her. Initially, she was told it was for her to familiarize herself with the kwamis there, just in case. So, she did.

The Burmese Miraculous Box had only nine miraculous. It was the one with the least amount of Miraculous among all of the boxes. Usually, Miraculous Boxes had a miraculous or set of miraculous (like in the Chinese Box’s case who had the balance of the Yin Yang at its center and so it had one for each of those two parts) as its core. Then it had a set either representing the cardinal points or basic elements depending on the box. At last, there was the respective Zodiac set of each.

The Burmese one had one miraculous as it’s core, no specific miraculous set for either cardinal point or elements, and a set of 8 miraculous representing a week-long zodiac cycle as well as the cardinal points.  
The core kwami was named Kketu and they were the strangest looking kwami she’d ever seen. They had the antlers of a deer, the tusks and the trunk of an elephant, the mane of a lion, the body of a naga serpent, and the tail of a fish. Apparently, they were the pyinsarupa kwami, though Marinette had difficulty pronouncing that. Kketu was the kwami of Superfluousness.

The remaining kwamis were a garuda, a tiger, a lion, a buffalo, a donkey, a rat, a guinea pig and a naga, named, respectively, Galonn, Kyarr, Kiinsae, Sainn, Hinne, Kyawatt, Puu and Nagarr.

Soon, she grew accustomed to the new beings in her home. The new arrivals found it odd being allowed to be outside of the box, but were enjoying it immensely.

Then came the news she hadn’t expected and Sayadaw Khin nominated her as the Guardian of the Burmese Miraculous Box and promptly forgot everything as the ownership passed to her. That was when she learned that all the older guardians were teaching her for the sole purpose of passing on the boxes. 

The time displacement had already been hard on them, but as they came to understand just how different the world was, the more they realized they no longer had what it took to make good decisions on who to hold a miraculous. They were too out of time. Meanwhile, Marinette had not only proved to be a good holder, but she also was proving to be a stupendous guardian. And so, they wished to pass on all their knowledge onto her so that she could select the future guardians for each box.

She… was pretty angry at having even more responsibility hoisted onto her and decided to start the search for other members of the neo-order soon. It didn’t keep her from feeling hurt that Sayadaw Khin no longer recognized her. It didn’t keep her from feeling sad that slowly she would lose the other old men that had become part of her family, regardless of whether she wanted to or not.

So, yeah, she’d had plenty of reason to be distracted.

She was still feeling stressed when Adrien called her. Their relationship had improved ever since he called Kim’s code. He’d actually shown up during the following Dupain-Cheng Christmas Party after being reassured it was ok and her mother had taken the time to try and fattening him up. They still weren’t close, but at least they could hold casual conversation without either of them wanting to crawl into a hole and die from the awkwardness. Kagami was pleased.

She’d finally conceded in letting him have her private number so this time he called her directly.

It was Rose. 

She wasn’t doing particularly bad in her life from what he’d seen, but she was sad she wasn’t doing what she wanted in life. Marinette wasn’t sure she wanted to intervene just yet. Rose, aside from the band, had never been particular about what she wanted to do in the future. In a way she had even worse rose-tinted glasses than Adrien did. At least she did when it came to thinking about her future.

So, Marinette made an appearance as Aranea in Paris to check Rose’s workplace and her general state of being. It was disheartening to see cheery, kind Rose looking as gloomy as her former girlfriend so Marinette decided to help her.

Besides, Rose was the only classmate she had that was never abusive towards her, aside from Adrien who merely ignored her. If she finally had something she really wanted to do, besides reviving Kitty Section, then Marinette would help.

Marinette was really sad that the Kitty Section had never panned out. They had potential, but then Lila ruined it. It started with her getting them to kick out Luka. Luka was more than fine now, with Jagged’s help, but it didn’t change that it happened and he wouldn’t want to downgrade back to Kitty Section after what they’d done to him.

Lila had taken her sweet time coming up with Luka’s replacement and, even then, the replacement was what Marinette considered to be a desperate attempt at keeping appearances. He certainly didn’t have even half of Luka’s talent.

Then Lila had tanked Juleka’s self-confidence. Not long after the Gotham field trip Juleka quit the band and her and Rose’s relationship didn’t withstand the pressure after that. Rose couldn’t help but think of Juleka leaving them high and dry not long after they finally managed to get a new guitarist as a small betrayal of their trust in her and Juleka hadn’t been in the best mindscape at the time to explain her issues.

Ivan then got busy with a part time job and without a bass, with an inconsistent drummer and with a crappy guitar player, Kitty Section suffered a swift death.

Marinette had assumed that Rose had at the very least continued studying music related things, considering her love for the subject, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Having had her band ripped apart in front of her own eyes, instead of working harder on it, Rose felt demotivated on anything related to music. She’d gotten into her head that it was better not to focus on such ephemeral things that can only earn money based on how famous they are like music. She still didn’t know what she wanted to do, so she started working at a flower shop to earn some money as she decided.

That had been where Adrien found her, when he went to buy a bouquet for his and Kagami’s next date.

As she looked into it, Marinette realized that Rose had tried really hard to find something she liked to further her studies. It didn’t help that she was just as dispirited working in the flower shop as she’d been in any course she’d attempted. It seemed her passion laid in music and nothing she tried could change that.

Because of Rose’s lack of focus on her future, Marinette hadn’t even actually set a contingency plan for her in stone, but now she knew there was no other way about it. Rose needed music in her life, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Now came the tricky part.

Rose had always been a girly girl. And while her parents were supportive, it didn’t change that they took one look at her fashion choices and personal tastes, and immediately placed her in a stereotype. For them, working at a flower shop seemed like a perfect job for her so, when she told them she didn’t want to pursue higher education, they took that at face value instead of trying to see why she felt like that.

It had been odd to them that she’d been a vocalist on a rock band and they’d actually been a bit relieved when her band broke apart. They were probably thinking that it was just a phase to Rose. There were plenty of teens that had the band phase and then stopped. And Rose had understood that reticence, even if only subconsciously.

Another thing was that Rose had heard Lila talking about connections and how they are so necessary in the celebrity world, how no one got far without the right connections. Lila had promised to provide said connections but she never had while the band was together, claiming that they should wait until they were done with basic education, and, by the time school was over and done with, there wasn’t any band to speak of anymore.

This wasn’t going to be straight forward to resolve, but Marinette had always been good at puzzling things out.

First stage was reawakening her love for music, or at least getting her to stop denying it. The best way to reintroduce it was to make it a hobby for when she wasn’t at work. Something small and fun that was cheap and maybe that she could do with her friends. Rose still hung out with Sabrina, who decided to try a hand at befriending people she hadn't before, and Mylène, who she'd been close friends with due to Ivan being in her band, out of the class, but not as often as before. Sabrina was going through her rehabilitation and wasn’t volunteering information on that, which meant she wasn’t sharing how her days had been aside from her work place. Mylène was in university so she didn’t have time either, especially since things were going smooth for her. Still, Marinette somehow managed to get Sabrina to suggest going to a karaoke bar as an activity. More specifically, she got Allegra to suggest it in the group chat.

She knew Rose had loved it when it became a regular thing for them to do when they got together.

Next was reintroducing her to her love of writing songs. That would also need to be a hobby. Thankfully there were groups for creative writing, much like there were book clubs. This time she had Adrien suggest it the next time he stopped by for another bouquet. That too became a regular thing for Rose.

And for a while she was satisfied, but Marinette knew it wouldn’t be enough. She was right. Rose still spent most of her time doing a work she didn’t enjoy. While knowing the meaning of all the flowers and spelling out messages through them was something that appealed to her romantic side, that aspect rarely came into play as she was selling them. Most people either wanted the red roses due to cliché, wanted their significant other’s favorite flower regardless of meaning, or went for the prettiest arrangement they saw, also regardless of meaning. There was also the fact that her work was boring beyond belief.

And so, came the next part of her plan. Exposure to critique.

If Marinette wanted her to consider song writing and playing music as a potential career, she needed her to realize that she _did_ have that as an option, but that wasn’t going to happen with her singing karaoke or writing for a club. She would need to expose her talents in a public media. 

Since she was alone, she no longer had a band to play in public spaces, like parties and small concerts, like Kitty Section had done before. She also had no connections that could get her new band members. That left only one media she could explore: the internet.

This part of convincing her, Marinette did herself. She didn’t want to tip off Sabrina of what she was doing and Adrien was never close enough of a friend to her to make that suggestion. And while at the end Marinette’s reputation was in shambles, she’d still been a good friend of hers before Lila fucked things up. There was also the bonus that Rose didn’t hate her guts, though she was disappointed in her perceived ‘change of heart’.

If Marinette was lucky, Rose would think she’d now had a change of heart for the better and not think too deeply into it.

Marinette took note of the small blonde’s habits to see when it was more likely for her to be singing while at work. 

It was easy to plant the idea. After a moment of small talk while both strategically avoided talking about the class, Marinette, this time as herself, commented that she should make a Youtube channel. It was casual enough that it wouldn’t feel like work but, at the same time, a great way to bring her confidence up, maybe even get her a few potential bandmates through colabs.

Then it was a matter of visiting her again as Aranea not long after, while she was still thinking about the subject, mention that she looked troubled and, like a good Samaritan, offer to lend her an ear.

Rose was warier of strangers than when she’d been a teen, but that didn’t mean much considering that when she was a teen she tried to help an akuma stand up out of the kindness of her heart while she was gunning to take all of the life force she could to power a trip through time. Truly, the only reason Marinette noticed her newfound wariness was only because of a small hesitation before spilling everything.

So, Marinette told her she could try it out just to test the waters and see how it went. If she didn’t like it, she could just take it all down and that was that. She wouldn’t lose anything for giving it a try, after all.

Marinette left it at that. Too much pressure to convince her would just make her go the other way. She didn’t know if Rose asked Sabrina and Milène about it.

She only found out much later that Rose did go through with it and, even then, it was only because she’d started helping another classmate that knew about it and found out that way. It wasn’t easy to track down a small unknown account when she had no idea what the new Rose would call it, after all. Not when she kept it separate from all of her other accounts.

She still sung a lot of rock songs. She’d even brought back the guitarist that Lila had recommended after some months and he wasn’t bad. Granted, he was no Luka Couffaine, but no one could ever be.   
Rose started attending classes on composing music and started learning some instruments to go along with her voice. Marinette made sure to use both her old accounts as well as her new ones to like all of her videos. As time went by, she ended up pairing up with Allegra in a colab. It was odd mixing flute with rock music, but it was inspired. Rose even began to make her own songs.

Just as her channel’s views seemed to start to stagnate, Marinette took it upon herself to reconnect her with another friend. She sent her channel’s link to Prince Ali’s e-mail account with an innocuous message telling him to check out how their mutual friend was going.

It didn’t take long for Rose and Sebastien (the guitarist) to be invited to visit and play in the palace. Prince Ali even played a part, as he knew one of his land’s traditional instruments. With a find of finagling, Rose got it to harmonize with her music just fine and that video became viral.

Now there was no hiding Rose’s talents. It was up to Rose to decide what to do with it.

Marinette would be watching from afar. It wouldn't be until the class reunion that she saw her personally again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The code name is after Rose's Unicorn plushie that she lost to Alix due to Marinette's 'failure in delivering a gift from her to Adrien. Technically she hadn't failed, but it had led to Chat being akumatized so she had to go back and purposefully fail the task, thus, deliberatly failing Rose too.
> 
> So... I researched lots of zodiac signs. the Hindu and Burmese were the most mindfucking. The Hindo had counterparts to the western zodiac, but then it is combined with 27 signs that are related to the moon? And in the Burmese you take this clusterfuck and add the week days?  
> I ended up leaving the western zodiac by itself, using the 27 signs one for the hindu and leaving the weekdays to the Burmese.
> 
> The reason why the core miraculous of this set has the kwami of Superfluousness it because the 8 signs could be interpreted as 9 because of Keto. Unfortunately keto doesn't actually play a part in the zodiac, he's commonly referred to as the ruler of the burmese zodiac, but how that works is never explicit? Anyway, have fun with the first fanon miraculous box. There'll be more to come.


	5. Code - Stoneheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forth Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, started a new job and have been Tired to the extreme.

Next time she was called for help, it wasn’t long after she’d talked to Rose under her true name. It was around seven months after she started Rose’s Safety Net™ plan. During that time, she had another Grimoire shoved her way and was bitterly going through it.

It was hard to find any enthusiasm in studying it when she knew what would happen once she finished it. No matter how interesting the Egyptian Box might be, nothing could compensate her losing another master.

She’d taken to spending as much time as possible with the Egyptian Guardian Bakari Saeed. Time she never got to spent with Khin when he’d still been her Sayadaw. She could at the very least do that for Master Saeed.

Still, part of her couldn’t help but stare at the Grimoire. It invoked so many interesting design ideas just seeing what past heroes looked like. In spite of herself, she learned faster than she wanted just because of that.

She’d been so focused on her own things, along with all the Safety Net™ plans she had going on that she didn’t have a minimal updated background for when Adrien came knocking again and spoke Ivan’s code like she usually had for the others. All she knew before Adrien had come to her was that he’d gotten a stable job as a construction worker instead of his former part-time gig at a grocery store.  
So, the first thing she did after that was set up some background checks. This time she had to be more careful than usual. 

She was aware that someone was inside the former Agreste Mansion and, considering who bought it, it was very likely someone she wanted to avoid. She took to using Trixx to disguise herself while in Paris, but it didn’t make it any easier. Natanelle had a reason explaining why she avoided touching other people, but this person that Marinette made up and never characterized didn’t have that going for him. 

Yes, him. 

What better way to avoid being noticed by whoever was in the mansion than going by the wrong gender? To everyone else she was Louis Saeed and her looks were a bit inspired in what her current master looked like when younger (at least according to what he told her) with a bit of Adrien mixed in between.

She had to be really careful out on the streets since this time it was a full body illusion and she couldn’t touch anything accidentally. Using her hands was fine, since the illusion over them was light, only changing her skin color.

Soon she had the full background.

It all went back to Kitty Section once again. Ever since Luka was forced out of the band, they couldn’t perform. And though he hadn’t said anything to his band-mates, Ivan was counting on the money they earned with the band for his university fees. 

They eventually got Lila’s promised guitarist but things didn’t get better. Sebastien wasn’t bad, but it was clear he wasn’t as experienced and he certainly didn’t have the same way with melody that Luka had. More prominently, any guitar solos he might get had to be readied and practiced in advance while Luka would ad lib just by reading the mood in the concert hall and flowing with it. They started earning money again, but it wasn’t as much as before. Still, it was better than nothing.

At this point he’d been hoping to save for a scooter to make it easier for him to move around the city, since it was clear he wouldn’t get enough for university.

Then Juleka left with little explanation. It wasn’t that he hadn’t suspected it would happen. While he’d never been completely sure, he’d noticed how low the goth’s mood had been lately. Rose had dismissed it a bit. It was a consequence of only seeing the nice things in others. Eventually it led to them missing the red flags.

He’d tried to talk to her before then, but he wasn’t the best at it, so her issues remained undiscovered.

After she left the band… things weren’t the same. Rose was hurting! She’d at first tried to understand why Juleka wanted to leave but, with each time Juleka failed to explain what she was feeling, Rose became less tolerant.

He wasn’t present for their break up. All he knew was that suddenly Rose had no inspiration for her songs. That and the lack of a bassist killed whatever remained. 

Pity. Sebastien had improved enough that the band was regaining their quality. But Ivan had seen that coming and had made peace with it in advance. He’d even started a part time job to make up for what the band wasn’t making. Just in case he was right. And he was.

After graduation, he never did get enough money for even his scooter, let alone a university. Mylène had gotten in, though.

They ‘d already had a rough patch before this, but then Ivan exchanged his part-time for a full time as a construction worker and Mylène had university classes. They were constantly busy and didn’t spend as much time together as before. This led to rough times for them as they adjusted.

But with honesty and a talk of expectations and compromises on both of their parts, they fixed their relationship before this escalated. They were considering moving in together eventually, but neither was in a place where that was possible just yet.

Ivan was a hard worker and he wasn’t shy in putting his effort even in less than pleasant jobs. He was handling his new job much better than Rose did hers. That didn’t change the fact that he was stuck in a job he didn’t like, one that had a high chance of injury at that, and had clearly wanted to go to university but didn’t get to save enough money for it.

She was a bit surprised that he’d wanted to go into Literature but, in hindsight, it made sense. He did write that lovely song for Mylène. Sure, he certainly wasn’t the best singer, but the lyrics were beautiful. And what is a written down song if not a poem? For someone so big and burly, he was quite the sensitive guy.

Still, she’d wondered what in literature he wanted to study about since she only saw his searching a few specific classes, not the whole thing. She came to understand, after some more digging with her even increasing hacking skills, that he was interested in becoming a lyricist and wanted those few classes as a way to improve his writing abilities.

On top of that, she realized he was also compiling in his computer a whole folder of what she’d at first had assumed were poems for what could become a portfolio. 

This meant that, despite everything, he was still trying. He hadn’t given up like Rose.

Now, Marinette, after some research, knew that there were other ways to become a lyricist aside from taking the courses. He clearly was already organizing a portfolio, which was one of them, along with the other options of going freelance, trying to grow a network or applying for lyricist jobs. His biggest issue, however, was a lack of self-confidence. He wanted to take the classes because it would solidify his confidence in his skills by having the knowledge of what was considered good rhyming and bad rhyming, among other things.

That was easy to take care of, though. She reached out under her own name, because somehow Monsieur Haprèle had managed to recognize her voice on the phone even after so long, and told the actor about Ivan’s aptitude for lyric-writing and that it might be a good idea to get him to write a few songs for a musical, if Monsieur Haprèle was so inclined. She did warn him that Ivan was no good at singing, like his daughter could certainly tell him too. She offhandedly commented that it was too bad Ivan only knew how to play the drums because having something more melodic as an instrument might be able to help him convey what he wanted out of the lyrics.

It also didn’t help that he’d been trying to sing in the Metal genre, to be honest.

Sooner than she’d expected, she got news of Ivan spending a lot more time in the theater. He was apparently learning where each note on the keyboard was along with the different scales and what made one scale different from the other along with how to identify them in a song through the harmony and chords under one of the younger actor’s guidance.

Despite being an actor, Claude was very good at composing music, though he had no formal training, aside from a few youtube tutorials, and only did it for fun. He certainly was excited for the prospect of actually being in a musical. They’d done a few dances in the plays before, but never song.

As for Mylène, she was just happy that she got to spend time with both her father and boyfriend at the same time instead of splitting the few time she had out of her classes, and didn’t question it too much.

Ivan didn’t stop working in construction, though. He still had to earn money while the lyricist gig still hadn’t launched. 

The first completely original musical was launched eight months later and it was a hit, for what it was. This was still France and this was still a Musical that was only being shown in Paris, so it didn’t become a media sensation. Marinette did film it under her unnamed male persona. She sent a copy to monsieur Haprèle and advised him to post it on the internet after they were done doing showings of it in the theater so that it wouldn’t be forgotten.

She did the same for the next musical, and the next one too. The forth one, she wasn’t needed any longer since Mylène was doing it now.

It took some time, but eventually people started becoming interested in who was writing such beautiful songs. Claude’s and Ivan’s names came to light as the composer and lyricist respectively.

Soon they were being hired by bigger guys in the industry. Each ended up supplementing their skills with more classes on their respective subjects, now that they had the money. Claude still liked acting better, from what she found out, but wasn’t opposed to the job. He did get to make cameos in whatever film or musical they wrote for, much like Stan Lee had made cameos for all the Marvel movies.

Somehow, she found that the leads of any musical or film that they were in got their clothes for the performances commissioned from her. She tried not to question it too much. She’d told Monsieur Haprèle not to tell Ivan or Mylène about her intervention, but she was starting to think she’d been dismissed if it weren’t for the fact that Ivan himself never commissioned her.

After a while of seeing only successes coming from the duo, Marinette concluded that he was fine now and abstained from keeping him under watch. Ivan would be fine, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ivan's code stems from Marinette's feeling of guilt over not being able to keep him from being akumatized that second time due to not cleansing the akuma and thus, she feels she failed Ivan.
> 
> (once more I like to point out that when she wrote these codes it was not long before she left school and was still in a somewhat toxic head space. She was better than before, but she still laid a lot of guilt onto herself unnecessarily.)


	6. Code - Photoshoot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifth Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay. there were three culprits. one was my recently gotten work, the other was the workload and chaos of the holidays and at last a commenter put in the idea of adding more lore to the other miraculous I made. Yes, I'm talking to you Barry Woods. While I'm not going to use all your suggestions for miraculous concepts, I am going to use some of them (like some of the ones you suggested for the remaining miraculous of the chinese box). I might (attention to the word 'might') eventually write up an addition with all the miraculous, the kwamis, the concepts, the powers and all that. it will be a separate part of the series, however, because I don't want to mix more lore than necessary into a section that is all about saving the class.

All too soon, Marinette was handed the Egyptian Box by Master Saeed. Knowing that the next time they saw each other he wouldn’t remember her she hugged the life out of him. This took even more of an emotional toll since Khin had died just a week prior due to the time displacement strain he was under now that he didn’t have the guardianship to keep it at bay.

All the kwamis under her care gladly welcomed the new seventeen additions. Like was norm in all of the Miracle Boxes, it had a core miraculous, this time a scarab Kwami named Keppri whose powers fell under Light in general, along with the concept of Renewal, and was associated a lot with the sun. 

Under him as the four cardinal Egyptian kwamis were Imsett, a sphinx kwami, Duateff, a fennec fox, Happi, a baboon, and Qebbeh, an osprey.

Finally, there were the Zodiac members themselves. They were still twelve, but it was sort of funny how the Egyptians had associated them to their gods. The few that were associated to a human looking god usually were in the shape of an animal linked to them.

Amoon was the only exception to that. He was linked to Amon-Ra who was often depicted as having a falcon head, but Amoon was a goose. 

Anpuu was a jackal associated with Anubis. Bastt was a cat, more specifically an Egyptian Mau, and was associated with Bastet. Gebb was a crocodile and was associated with Geb, Marinette wasn’t sure why he was a crocodile, though. Heruu was a falcon and was associated with Horus. Ausett was a heifer and was associated with Isis, who was depicted as having cow horns sometimes, though both were sometimes confused with Hathor. Muut was a white vulture and was linked to Mut. Nille was a hippo and instead of a god he was linked to the actual Nile river. Siriss was a Grim and was linked to Osiris. Sakkmis was a lioness and was related to Sekhmet. Sett was a saluki dog, or at least looked close enough to one, though he himself wasn’t quite sure what he was, since sometimes he referred to himself as an aardvark, and was related to the god Seth. Tehutty was an ibis and was related to Thoth.

Things were rowdy for a while as the new arrivals adapted to being allowed to roam freely, much like the Burmese ones had, though with a lot more chaos and confusion added in. So, she was actually relieved when Luka called her, hoping for a distraction.

It… wasn’t the kind of distraction she’d been hoping for.

At best she’d been expecting him to regale her with tales of his latest city tour. She hadn’t expected for him to tell her Juleka’s code.

Juleka… 

While Juleka had never done anything to her directly, it was pretty clear she was buying into Lila’s bullshit and only refrained from saying anything to her because Rose was nice to her and she didn’t want to be at odds with her girlfriend, because Luka was her friend and she didn’t want to be at odds with him either, and because she wasn’t a naturally confrontational person. 

That didn’t stop her from glaring at her whenever she knew Rose and Luka weren’t watching. Marinette had once come across a voodoo doll resembling herself that she was pretty sure was Juleka’s doing, though she never confronted her. Voodoo didn’t seem Juleka’s thing, but at that point Marinette was seriously questioning if she’d ever really known her friends.

Because if she had truly known them, if what she thought of them as people had been in any way true, they would never had turned on her the way they did. And Juleka was one of them.

Juleka had been one of the reasons she opted out of dating Luka. Any disagreement they would have had as siblings if she’d started dating him would have always somehow be linked to her in any way. It was already bad enough as it was, with her being blamed half of the time, so she hadn’t wanted to risk it.

Then there was the fact that she realized her feelings for Adrien had been hindering her and, as much as she already liked Luka, she forced herself not to allow her heart to open to him romantically. Not while there was a moth to catch. She couldn’t afford to be distracted anymore.

She’d already compromised her morals often enough over Adrien and she knew that if she let herself love Luka, who had been supportive of her since the beginning, it would be so much worse. And while she had complete faith in her blue haired friend, she just couldn’t afford to risk heartbreak considering her general mental state at the time. 

After she’d caught Hawkmoth, Luka had been busy but she’d been planning on joining his tour for a while after she finished school and give it a try. Batman knowing her identity put a stopper to that plan, and her having to remain hidden, as well as her now multiple guardianship, put a damper in general to any potential dating that could happen outside of Luka.

Even so, the only reason she had only considered asking him out after school ended was because Juleka would basically become a non-entity in their relationship. She would have been doing her own thing and Luka would have been on tour, so both of the girls wouldn't interact much. And if things had been going well between Marinette and Luka, perhaps not having Lila constantly reminding Juleka just what an ‘awful human being’ Marinette was would have changed her mind about her, if only for a bit.

So, hearing Luka calling Juleka’s code all of a sudden had brought to the surface all the hopes she’d used to hold about Luka and herself, as awell as all the heartache and bitterness over the other girl, and she wasn’t quite sure what to say for a moment.

She then asked to be filled in since it was the most logical step to follow, while she tried to get her head on the matter at hand.

Juleka’s case was similar to Sabrina’s in that Lila had slowly tore at her self-esteem, only less blatantly. Sabrina only had Lila as part of her social life, Juleka had her brother and girlfriend and a few friends. Certain things she did or said to Sabrina would not go unnoticed on Juleka.

She started small, by telling her that despite her slender body, she had no profile for modeling. And Juleka, timid and afraid of the spotlight Juleka, easily believed her.

But Lila hadn’t stopped at that. Slowly, she’s slipped a few comments of Juleka’s body. Always it was phrased as concern when she did so. 

_You are looking pretty frail today. Have you been eating right?_

_Are you sick? Your skin looks a bit pasty. You should take better care of yourself._

Marinette knew this because she’d seen it with her own eyes.

Then the jabs started towards Juleka’s personality, likes and dislikes. Framing her as… different. ‘ _It’s not a bad thing, of course_ ’ Lila was quick to reassure. But Marinette knew that when someone heard this over and over again, they would start believing the opposite. Because clearly something must be wrong if someone is commenting on it so much.

Considering how bad Lila’s lies were, Marinette was surprised that she could manage such subtle insults, looking back. Which was why she hadn’t realized what was happening to Juleka until much later.

Marinette hadn’t been surprised that Juleka quit the band even if she had yet, at the time, to realize what Lila was doing to the goth. Honestly, Kitty section was such a broken-down mess from what it used to be that she was only astonished that it hadn’t happened earlier. However, she was surprised that Juleka herself couldn’t put into words why she didn’t want to be in the band anymore. That had been her first clue that something more was happening that she wasn’t seeing.

But it was only now, years later, that Marinette risked hacking to find out why, only to come across the results of Lila’s subtle jabs. Juleka wouldn’t write a physical record of her daily life, like Marinette did, since it ran the risk of being found by her mother, who would probably read it, or so Juleka had seemed to think. She also wasn’t about to leave it stewing in a Word document where people using her laptop could find it. Instead, Marinette found her vents in an anonymous online platform account that the goth had taken great lengths to make it sound as unlike her as possible when she created it.

There was so much. There, Juleka detailed how she was feeling down and bad about herself. That she couldn’t explain why she felt that despite all her friends supporting her. Despite having good friends and a supportive girlfriend and absolutely no reason to feel the way she did, she felt despondent, depressed and really, really insecure about herself.

As time went on she only began to get worse because she started berating herself on feeling this way. She had nothing to be upset about. There were dozens of people with way worse lives who managed to be happy. She had no right to feel this way. Or so she kept telling herself throughout her anonymous posts.

Of course, aside from the positive responses she got to that, her posts also lured a lot of trolls and it was clear that she definitely wasn’t ignoring those like she should have.

And then came the moment she quit the band and Rose broke up with her and her mood in general took a dive. Suddenly she was as alone as Marinette had been in class. But unlike Marinette, Juleka had no one since her brother was still abroad.

In the years that followed graduation she actually got better since she was no longer under Lila’s influence. She ended up going for a work revolving around makeup.

She started doing makeup for short movies. It wasn’t anything special but it paid the bills once she got a place of her own.

She wasn’t happy, but she was satisfied by the time Luka returned.

Then it all changed.

Marinette had tried to stay as far away from Lila’s life as possible, not wanting the unfairness of her no doubt great life to ruin her own progress in letting things go. This time she couldn’t avoid it, though.

Apparently, sometime after graduation (Marinette refused to research when), Lila stopped modeling and started acting. And Juleka was now faced with doing her make up. Lila didn’t even recognize her and Juleka was glad to let it stay that way, but her pattern of behavior towards her was the same as before from the moment the producer had assumed that Juleka was the new actress for a split second before noticing Lila and recognizing her face.

It was the first time that Juleka realized that all her former negative thoughts were returning but, instead of dismissing herself like she’d done before, Juleka paid attention. Juleka wasn’t a naïve teenager anymore. She’d seen many things while doing makeup for the movies. She was introverted so she didn’t gossip with others, She no longer had an extroverted girlfriend to do the gossiping for her either, but she was still curious and, in turn, she became more observant.

So she noticed what Lila was doing this time.

But that didn’t mean a thing when, as the makeup artist, she was replaceable while Lila wasn’t and she didn’t want to lose her job so she didn’t confront her. Not confronting Lila meant that peace was kept and that she got to keep her job.

It didn’t help her, however, in dealing with Lila’s constant verbal stings.

Juleka wasn’t ok, but she endured, thankful now that Lila didn’t recognize her. This was the extent of Juleka’s writings in the internet account.

What had prompted Luka’s call, however, wasn’t to be found there. In fact, considering the urgency in his voice, it had to be something very recent. So, Marinette hacked the street cams to follow back Juleka’s path up until she reached him. It lead to the movie’s set. Eventually Marinette found a two videos happening at the same time, one with Juleka standing frozen still before horror took over her expression and then running off, and the other featuring Lila and another girl in a location that was very close to where Juleka was.

There was no audio in the recording and it was granulated enough that Marinette couldn’t lip-read the conversation. From an outsider’s point of view, it looked like a cordial exchange. Marinette knew it was anything but. So, she decided to do something that probably shouldn’t. 

She knew that one should never use a Miraculous selfishly and that at times like this, where there wasn’t a villain to be fought, the line that separated selfishness and selflessness was very blurred. She would be doing it for Juleka’s sake. That was selfless. She would do it because of her self-imposed task of fixing everyone else’s lives after Lila. That could be seen as selfish on certain perspectives.

There were better miraculouses to use to find out the truth. Tehutty, the Ibis Kwami, presided over Memory and Intellect, and the miraculous could easily give her a record of what had happened. But Marinette still wasn’t comfortable with the Egyptian Box, especially when the person she saw as the legitimate guardian was still alive despite the lack of memory on that front. So, instead, she used a far more dangerous one. She used the Rabbit.

Fluff was all too happy to help and Marinette took the time to search the Burrow for the time and place she needed to see what had happened.

And she heard Lila threatening some girl from production, claiming she could easily take away her job and credibility. She’d done it before plenty of times. The all too familiar spiel.

Juleka, it seemed, was finding the details of how Lila ruined someone else’s life all to familiar as well. She had a major crisis when she recognized it. No one knew why she suddenly had a break down but sent her home, hoping she would get better in time to not need replacement.

Luka just happened to be on break from his tours when this happened and Juleka ran to him babbling hysterically which was when he’d contacted her, even while not knowing exactly what had happened, only that Juleka needed help.

Never had Marinette expected to face this situation. She’d been all too ready to build Juleka’s self confidence back up, get her a modeling job and be done with it once she was sure her confidence was solid and her job secured. Maybe employ her some times for her own brand’s modeling gigs if she really had to. But this? 

This would require Marinette to meet wit her. Because Juleka realized the extent of what had been done to the fashion designer and wasn’t ok with it at all. She would want to atone and she would want closure, both things that Marinette wasn’t sure she could provide.

She was fine staying in the sidelines, like she did with Kim, before fading away from the other person’s life once more. With Juleka, that wouldn’t happen. Especially when Luka was also a part of both of their lives.

But Marinette hadn’t gotten this far by doing what was easiest. She wasn’t teenage!Adrien. She was Ladybug, the Guardian of the Miraculouses, and the CEO of Dandelion’s Coccinelle and she hadn’t gotten any of those tittles by doing ‘easy’.

She first told Luka what she found out. By the time she called him back, Juleka had fallen asleep after her breakdown, leaving Luka still clueless about what happened, but none the less supportive. He was also quick to realize what would be required of Marinette and just how much that would cost her. She knew he’d been perfect for the Kwami of Intuition and even years after the fact he kept proving it.

The next day, she was standing on the other side of Luka’s front door, for once with no disguises on her person. It wasn’t a deliberate act on her part. Not completely at least. While she intended to at least be herself in front of Juleka, she didn’t want to trigger any facial scan searches on her person. But she wasn’t being her most rational at the moment.

All she’d wanted was to fix what Lila ‘broke’ in her former classmate’s futures and leave. She didn’t want to get too close to any of them. She wasn’t even sure if she would forgive them. Accept their apologies? Yes. Forgive? She had no idea. She only knew she would never, ever forget.

And while she’d been working on her own issues and, at most, some regarding Adrien since he was a part of her life now, through Kagami, she’d put any thought of her other former classmates to the side as much could. This… would put a stop to that, at least regarding Juleka. And Marinette wasn’t sure where to even place the girl socially at this point.

The fact that it was such an important thing to someone she cared for as much as she did Luka? It definitely didn’t help her relax.

She knocked and Luka opened the door. He was quick to read her expression and hugged her to him, knowing this was going to be rough for her, but appreciating that fact that even so she was still there.

As soon as Juleka saw her, she collapsed in a sobbing mess and Marinette was split between comforting her, since it was such an intrinsic part of herself, and turning away as bad memories flashed through her mind.

Seeing Rose face to face had been easy, since Marinette knew Rose had tried her best to stay neutral, and succeeded, in a classroom environment that motivated everyone to antagonize her. Kim was only easy because she could channel all her bitterness into her challenges to him by antagonizing him into accepting. But part of her subconsciously blamed Juleka for her own decision of not dating Luka. It wasn’t fair, but emotions don’t have brains.

In the end, Marinette opted by sitting by her side in silence. A neat compromise between her usually natural action of hugging and her kneejerk reaction of turning away. Juleka seemed to appreciate it, once she calmed down.

They spent a big part of the day talking. And by talking, it meant a real talk, not simple idle chatter about the weather and such.

Juleka was the one to start not only because Marinette didn’t know what to say, but also because she was the one with the most need to get it all out. It wasn’t an easy conversation. Marinette was the first to refuse to allow either of them to censor their words.

The words weren’t pretty on either of their sides, but both refused to give into hurt feelings and anger. Marinette because she didn’t want to fuck this up for Luka and also because of her guardian training and Juleka because, after finding out about what Marinette had gone through, didn’t feel even the tiniest bit entitled to feeling any offense of defensiveness.

Things didn’t get better right away.

Marinette had to go away again, though she didn’t tell Juleka why and she didn’t ask. But they kept in touch through e-mail.

Juleka completed her work with Lila and immediately removed herself from having any more contact with her and she began to come to terms with what she’d found out, especially regarding how Lila had chipped away at her confidence.

She started going to therapy to deal with those issues, all the while, Marinette took the chance to inform Adrien of what happened, if only so he could keep score of who had already been helped.

He also began talking more often to Juleka, so Marinette decided to leave convincing her to give it a try to her dreams of modeling up to him. He, of course, armed with psychological knowledge from his classes and some very convincing arguments, managed to do that. He used his old contacts in the modeling industry to set her up. They weren’t as powerful as they once were, since many people had withdraw away from the Gabriel brand when his father’s terrorism came to light, and a few more had join in when they realized that Adrien was leaving the modeling scene, but the remaining ones were a solid start for Juleka.

This new friendship between the two was also helped by the fact that Adrien was still trying to make it up to Marinette and had already gone through a lot what Juleka was now enduring.

Time went by as Juleka started to become famous. But she only went from regular model to super model when Marinette caved into her own discarded ideas and hired her to model some of her more unique designs down the catwalk in a fashion shown, years down the line.

They still weren’t friends by that point, but Marinette could look at her again and only see a person instead of the glaring girl who wanted her gone.

On another note, she did find out that the voodoo doll wasn’t Juleka’s, so that was a relief, though the news came way too late to be anything than an added note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The code name comes from the episode Reflecdoll. even though it was Alya who really fucked the whole thing up, Marinette feels guilty for giving into the idea of having a photoshoot with Adrien instead of trying harder to coax Juleka into relaxing so she could do the photoshoot herself.


End file.
